6th ring
encounter
218 cerberus II
218 bandits.
I send in a full squad of 72 blade dancers, a full squad of 6 treants, 3 squads of golems...
the dogs move, kill my full squad of blade dancers in 1 hit...the bandits kill 4/6 of my treants in 1 shot...
I retreated
I tried again,
this time i brought 2 squads of archer II
a squad of golems
a blade dancers,
a treants
i sat back waited for the dogs to come close.
blade dancers strike, only kill 30/218
treants strike, kill 30.
the dogs have 158/218 left...kill the full squad of blade dancers in 1 hit.
golems shoot the dogs...kill 12...
archers shoot the bandits kill 68/218
other archers kill 70/218
the bandits are left with 80 guys, they shoot my golems....kill the entire squad of 12 golems, in 1 shot.
then the dogs kill a squad of archers in 1 shot.
my remaining archers kill the bandit squad.
my treants kill 30 more dogs.
the dogs kill the other squad of archers.
my treants end up trading blows, for some rounds...i bring the dogs down to 1/218 of a squad, and they attack and kill 1 treant.
I won, with 1/6 of a treant squad left
So just to be clear:
1st attempt: You let the enemy get first hit? Just wanted to test how much damage they do if you don't get first hit yourself? Anyways that is ofc very sad to lose so many troops for such an avoidable mistake. Set up your starting position to avoid them hitting you in turn 1 at all costs.
2nd attempt:
round 1: sworddancer, treant, golem hit dog - 30+30+12 killed ... archer, archer hit bandits - 68+70 killed
enemy: 146 dogs hit sworddancer - 72 killed ... 80 bandits hit golem ... 12 killed
enemy???: 146 dogs hit archer - 72 killed
round 2: treants hit dog - 30 killed ... archers hit bandits - 80? killed
enemy: 116 dogs hit archers - 72 killed
round 3: treants hit dogs - 30 killed
enemy: 86 dogs hit treant - ? killed
...
round ?: 2 treants hit dogs - 1 dog survives
enemy: 1 dog hits treants - 1 treant killed.
You seemed to have fixed whatever went wrong in 1st attempt, so here is what I would try to change for next time, based on what you learned.
First off, be wary that due to poor choice of damage calculation, enemy stacks will always have at least 10% of starting damage. This is beyond frustrating on so many levels but it seems to be the mechanics they want for this game. So getting 1 dog left alive is roughly the same as logically having 22-23 dogs left
Now there seems to be two options. The dogs are the main problem but the enemy bandits end up costing you a squad early on. Depending on terrain I would try either
1st strategy: 1 sworddancer 2 treant 2 archer (leaving the bandits to get that 1 shot)
2nd strategy: 2 treant 3 archer/golem (drastically reducing the bandits in round 1)
What stands out is that the golems barely get to harm the dogs before getting killed. It's a little unclear what happens and you seem to write it as losing 3 squads in round 1.
If possible that should be changed. in 1st strategy, replacing with treants, you get more hp on your stack and take out more dogs. If terrain allows you might even be able to block them off and save some of your archers. The sworddancers are there to die from the dogs so that you are guaranteed to have at least 1 full stack of archers to kill the bandits in round 2. Getting 90 dogs down in round 1, they should do a little less damage - and the -70 damage from treants should help quite a bit to keep some more troops alive. You'd still lose quite a lot of troops, but at least not as many.
For the 2nd strategy make sure the bandits go way down. Archers should be ok for that based on your report, I don't know if golems are fine too. You're first hitting so if you do not get two 70 kills you can retreat and try again, increasing the chance of doing the most damage. You can also try with golems to see if they are better at getting the bandits down. Golems have less initiative than treants so from my understanding they would also bring the benefit of having the dogs attack treants first. I suppose they might not have range enough to all hit the enemy bandits though
I suppose you thought of most of these things already. If there is nothing new at all, I'm sorry for wasting your time! You'll quite often run into having to change your strategy a bit to reduce losses. Good luck!